I find it odd that a room full of otherwise seemingly normal human beings (press excluded) would cheer at being charged £700/$700 for the GTX 1080 Ti, even if it does claim to be the fastest gaming graphics card money can buy.

After all, that £700 could otherwise be spent on an entire gaming PC, the latest iPhone, a return flight from London to Los Angeles, or 139 bottles of the finest Scottish craft beer. Besides, surely those Americans in attendance at Nvidia's grand GTX 1080 Ti reveal in San Francisco had more pressing things to worry about? Life isn't all graphics cards and iPhones when your health is on the line.

Still, Nvidia was true to its word: the GTX 1080 Ti is indeed the fastest gaming graphics card money can buy—even faster than the £1,100/$1,200 e-peen extension that is the Titan X Pascal. It's a hell of a lot faster than the GTX 1080 too—which now sits in a "cheaper" price bracket of £500/$500—by as much as 30 percent. It's the first graphics card since the Titan XP that can play many games in 4K at 60FPS without having to fiddle with settings—you just whack everything on ultra and start playing. Plus it's a quiet graphics card, in its Founders Edition form at least, thanks to the improvements Nvidia has made to its iconic all-metal shroud.

But for all of Nvidia's bluster, it's hard not to be just a teensy bit disappointed. In all but memory capacity, which sits at an odd 11GB, the GTX 1080 Ti is a carbon copy of the Titan XP with a slightly higher clock speed. The likelihood of getting a fully unlocked GP102 GPU with all its cores enabled (a strategy taken with 780 Ti) seems slim. And with competition at this end of the market some months away—AMD has pencilled in a Q2 2017 release for Vega—there's little to stop Nvidia continuing to charge a premium for its top-of-the-range graphics cards, even if it's not the most expensive the company has released.

Pascal revisited

Those with deep enough pockets can pick up a Founders Edition GTX 1080 Ti directly from Nvidia on March 9, with partner cards arriving in the following weeks. Both are priced at the same £700/$700, which makes a nice change from the premium Nvidia used to charge for the Founders Edition. That said, Nvidia hasn't got the best track record with getting graphics cards into shops on release day, so expect inflated prices until availability levels out.

In Founders Edition form, the GTX 1080 Ti comes wrapped in Nvidia's slick, multifaceted cooling shroud—a blower-style design made of die-cast aluminium complete with a low-profile backplate and copper vapour chamber. Not everyone is a fan of the shard-like aesthetic (personally, I think it looks great), but there's no denying that it's a successful branding exercise—you can spot an Nvidia card a mile off. Internally, Nvidia has made a few tweaks, starting with the removal of the DVI port. Those with older, but perfectly usable 30-inch dual-link DVI monitors may lament its removal, but the vast majority of modern monitors connect via HDMI or DisplayPort, with the GTX 1080 Ti sporting one of the former and three of the latter.

Nvidia claims that by removing the DVI port, it's able to double the airflow compared to the GTX 1080 due to the larger exhaust area. Doubling airflow is an ambitious claim, but in a subjective listening test at least, the GTX 1080 Ti is seemingly quieter than its predecessors under load. It's not a dramatic change, and you'll certainly still hear the card if your PC isn't in a cupboard or under a desk, but any improvement to noise levels is welcome. The removal of the DVI port also means it's possible to create a single-slot water-cooled version of the GTX 1080 Ti without having to hack the port off or desolder it. Score one for the modders.

Internally there's an improved seven-phase 2x dual-FET power design for cleaner power with less heat, which does a good job of feeding the GTX 1080 Ti's 250W TDP via its 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors. At the heart of the GTX 1080 Ti is the same Pascal architecture GP102 GPU used in the Titan XP. There are the same 28 SMs and 3,584 CUDA cores out of a possible 3,840, meaning the GTX 1080 Ti still doesn't use a fully enabled GPU. If you want the full 3,840 you'll have to get the Quadro P6000, which costs roughly a bajillion pounds.

Don't worry, though: the 1080 Ti has plenty of performance on tap. Nvidia's new graphics card has some special GDDR5X memory chips that can be pushed to an impressive 11GHz. Coupled with a 352-bit memory interface, the GTX 1080 Ti has a memory bandwidth of 484GB/s, which is a teensy bit higher than the Titan XP's 480GB/s and miles ahead of the GTX 1080's 320GB/s.

GTX Titan XP

GTX 1080 Ti

GTX 1080

GTX 1070

GTX 1060

GTX Titan X

GTX 980 Ti

GTX 980

GTX 780 Ti

CUDA Cores

3,584

3,584

2,560

1,920

1,280

3,072

2,816

2,048

2,880

Texture Units

224

224

160

120

80

192

176

128

240

ROPs

96

88

64

64

48

96

96

64

48

Core Clock

1,417MHz

1,480MHz

1,607MHz

1,506MHz

1,506MHz

1,000MHz

1,000MHz

1,050MHz

875MHz

Boost Clock

1,531MHz

1,582MHz

1,733MHz

1,683MHz

1,708MHz

1,050MHz

1,050MHz

1,178MHz

928MHz

Memory Bus Width

384-bit

352-bit

256-bit

256-bit

192-bit

384-bit

384-bit

256-bit

384-bit

Memory Speed

10GHz

11GHz

10GHz

8GHz

8GHz

7GHz

7GHz

7GHz

7GHz

Memory Bandwidth

480GB/s

484GB/s

320GB/s

256GB/s

192GB/s

336GB/s

336GB/s

224GB/s

336Gb/sec

Memory Size

12GB GDDR5X

11GB GDDR5X

8GB GDDR5X

8GB GDDR5

6GB GDDR5

12GB GDDR5

6GB GDDR5

4GB GDDR5

3GB GDDR5

TDP

250W

250W

180W

150W

120W

250W

250W

165W

250W

Further Reading

That's not far off the 512GB/s of bandwidth pushed by AMD's Fury graphics cards, which are equipped with stacked High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Its upcoming Vega range, which will be equipped with HBM2, should push well beyond that, though.

Such high bandwidth memory does wonders for games running at 4K and above, where high-resolution textures need to be pushed into memory, but there is a small compromise for GTX 1080 Ti buyers: you only get 11GB of memory instead of 12GB. Nvidia has simply removed one of the 12 VRAM chips surrounding the GPU, resulting in the odd 352-bit memory interface and 88 ROPs. That's an understandable point of differentiation from a business standpoint: if Nvidia opted to strap 12GB of RAM to the 1080 Ti it would have a massive 528GB/s of bandwidth, completely blowing the Titan XP out of the water.

Still, for the vast majority of people, particularly gamers, that missing 1GB of memory will make little difference to performance. Even those making use of the Titan X's decent FP16 performance in science applications could stand to make a significant saving by buying GTX 1080 Tis instead of Titan Xs. I have it on good authority, however, that the Titan X remains a compelling option, if only for those trying to cram as much graphics memory as possible into the limited space of a science server rack.

Alongside the GTX 1080 Ti, Nvidia is dropping a few improvements to its drivers, as well as new features for developers. Most notable for consumers is further improved performance under DirectX 12. Nvidia suffered the briefest of performance deficits in key DX12 titles at the launch of the GTX 1080, and certain games continue to perform better under one graphics card vendor than the other thanks to marketing sponsorships and the way that the low level APIs of DX12 require more developer optimisation. But for the most part any glaring performance issues have been levelled out or greatly improved.

Further Reading

There's also a new version of ShadowPlay called ShadowPlay Highlights that automatically captures clips and screenshots of impressive gameplay—say, a 10-person kill-streak—but it does require game support. So far only the upcoming shooter Lawbreakers has been confirmed to support ShadowPlay Highlights. In-game photography tool Ansel should fare better thanks to the release of a public SDK for multiple game engines. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands is the latest game to support the tool, with support for Amazon's free Lumberyard game engine arriving shortly after.

162 Reader Comments

This review leaves me wondering more about this "BrewDog Punk IPA" and how it stands up to a west coast IPA? They even mention new world hops so I wonder. I've not had a european IPA that comes anywhere close to some of the IPAs we have out here.

Feel free to save us from the monotony and Nvidia's high prices any time, AMD.

Saving us from high prices, I get – competition is good. But monotony? I guess if you view video card manufacturing as some sort of gladiatorial contest, maybe. But since it's just a piece of hardware, I'm not sure I care which company's card is the fastest, and I certainly wouldn't think that one brand typically being the fastest as "monotonous". To each his own, though, I guess.

This review leaves me wondering more about this "BrewDog Punk IPA" and how it stands up to a west coast IPA? They even mention new world hops so I wonder. I've not had a european IPA that comes anywhere close to some of the IPAs we have out here.

Brew dog is the best! It takes a lot of inspiration from the West Coast IPAs, but has a distinct taste of its own. Not to say it's better than the West Coast stuff—I hammer the IPA when I hit the states—but it is by far one of the UK's best indie beers.

This review leaves me wondering more about this "BrewDog Punk IPA" and how it stands up to a west coast IPA? They even mention new world hops so I wonder. I've not had a european IPA that comes anywhere close to some of the IPAs we have out here.

BrewDog rocks! I'd also recommend trying the stronger version, which is rather ingeniously called "Hardcore Punk IPA".

Since they put surveillance into even in their base drivers, I'm no longer willing to use NVidia cards. I'm hopeful that AMD will improve enough that this won't be much of a problem by the time I'm thinking about buying my next card.

It used to be that the spyware was only in the GEForce Experience software, which was the reason I didn't use it, but they decided they wanted to know what you were running and what you were doing with your system even with the base drivers. And you can't opt out in any official way, at least when I last looked into this.

What's worse is that they explicitly say that this surveillance is for marketing purposes. It's in the EULA that they'll be using it this way. Charging you $700 for the graphic card apparently isn't enough, they also want to use you for market research data.

I absolutely despise where the computer market is going. They are leaving me behind. The one thing in your life you need be able to trust is your computing device, but these companies are actively preventing that from happening. You are no longer the owner, just a renter, using the system at their sufferance.

edit: there's more data a few posts down. I'm not just ranting, this is real.

Since they put surveillance into even in their base drivers, I'm no longer willing to use NVidia cards. I'm hopeful that AMD will improve enough that this won't be much of a problem by the time I'm thinking about buying my next card.

It used to be that the spyware was only in the GEForce Experience software, which was the reason I didn't use it, but they decided they wanted to know what you were running and what you were doing with your system even with the base drivers. And you can't opt out in any official way, at least when I last looked into this.

Doesn't AMD's incapability to compete justify NVidia's pricing? Is this just a case of wanting to build up a monolith only to tear them down being the favorite pastime of critics?

I ask this because time and time again for the past 15 years or so I've heard AMD is just around the corner from usurping NVidia's throne and it never has, leaving me to wonder whether or not the cost that we're paying is justified by the R&D to make these cards.

If it really was so "easy" then AMD would've done it by now. But every time they come out with a processor that's going to give Intel a run for its money or a GPU to give NVidia a run for its, the execution never comes close to the benchmarks.

I get it, AMD's the underdog and people love an underdog. But when do we start acknowledging that there's a reason why NVidia and Intel are in the lead?

As you use our Services, we may collect passive information through the use of cookies, web beacons, log file information and other tracking technologies, including your IP address, browser type, device type, device ID, geolocation data, Uniform Resource Locators (URL) and operating system

When you use our Services, we may collect "Personal information", which is any information that can be used to identify a particular individual which can include traditional identifiers such as name, address, e-mail address, telephone number and non-traditional identifiers such as unique device identifiers and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

We may, from time to time, share your Personal Information with third party business partners, vendors, affiliates, and other service providers that perform services on our behalf, in order to carry out their work for us, which may include identifying and serving targeted advertisements, e-commerce, content or service fulfillment, website operations, email communications management, customer service, analytics, manufacturing, integration, delivery, support, payment, and servicing processes.

In other words: it's for marketing, and they can share any data they pull from your system any goddamn way they feel like, with anyone they want. Note the really important bit: serving targeted advertisements. They can combine this data with any other entity they want, to build any kind of profile on you they wish, and then use it to try to extract more money from your wallet.

Video drivers are in a supremely privileged position in your system, and I firmly believe that this is unethical behavior.

edit to add: There is no limit to the data they can extract from your computer. This is a spying position that Facebook would kill for -- and would likely pay NVidia a lot of money to get their hands on.

Doesn't AMD's incapability to compete justify NVidia's pricing? Is this just a case of wanting to build up a monolith only to tear them down being the favorite pastime of critics?

I ask this because time and time again for the past 15 years or so I've heard AMD is just around the corner from usurping NVidia's throne and it never has, leaving me to wonder whether or not the cost that we're paying is justified by the R&D to make these cards.

If it really was so "easy" then AMD would've done it by now. But every time they come out with a processor that's going to give Intel a run for its money or a GPU to give NVidia a run for its, the execution never comes close to the benchmarks.

I get it, AMD's the underdog and people love an underdog. But when do we start acknowledging that there's a reason why NVidia and Intel are in the lead?

I think there will be dark days ahead for Nvidia not due the AMD but indirectly due to AMD because the consoles are just going to get more powerful until the time they can do 4K 60 frames a second, making Nvidia make a card that is half the price of a GTX1080Ti... (because of PCMR) AMD does not care if they make a "console chip" that cannibalizes it's graphics cards, the scores of millions of consoles sold with said chip is "good enough". and AMD can Sell a Graphics card that is reasonably priced...

AMD has always had chips that are "good enough" and "reasonably priced" but every time a new game comes out, everyone's flipping out on damn near every forum about how the game runs like garbage on their AMD card. Even back when AMD was king, their drivers were awful and they're not getting any better.

The only way AMD will take over as king is if they work as closely with the developers to optimize for AMD the way NVidia is. But they won't, because they cut every corner they can thus leaving their cards to execute a fraction of what they "should" work at.

This is the premium you're paying for when you buy NVidia. And if you're buying AMD you're not paying for that premium, therefore you'll never get it. That kind of labor isn't free. These employees aren't a charity.

Here's a bit of additional data from a Titan XP owner. I picked up a Titan XP a few months ago and ended up slapping on a 1080 hybrid watercooler (this one), and my overall 3DMark score went up by almost 10% just by installing the kit. The increase comes from the GPU no longer throttling under load.

I don't have any of the other games installed that Mark benchmarked with, but some of the score gap here might also be because Mark is using a 6-core CPU at 4.5GHz, and I have a 4-core 6700K at (at least for now) stock 4.0 speed.

edit - still, considering I paid $1200 for the card and the Ti is $700, it's still the clear winner.

Are there any benchmarks that show off these cards' performance in VR? Hitman and BF1 at 4K are great and all and you can do some handy extrapolation, but it'd be nice to see some actual numbers with a VR focus...

This looks like a very decent GPU, and I would buy it in a whim, if I had money to throw at it.I don't, however, and I will stick with AMD for now, for:1. stimulating the competition a bit - NVidia users should be happy if AMD fare well (the opposite is also true, to the extent that AMD still have enough money to stay competitive)2. having pretty decent performance, already, if you're not gaming at 4K and using all the bells and whistles. A lot of bang for your buck, really3. their promising advances, most notably in the memory domain, with HBM2 and on-board SSDs4. their commitment to open standards, unlike NVidia. And that's where it hurts every time I use an NVidia card.5. their open-source Linux driver strategy, which I like a lot. And, no, it's not completely overlapping with open *standards*.

So, I'm waiting for vega, and I might buy it, or a lower-powered card. Or I might just save money and stay with my current card, which doesn't seem that bad, and upgrade some other parts instead

Are there any benchmarks that show off these cards' performance in VR? Hitman and BF1 at 4K are great and all and you can do some handy extrapolation, but it'd be nice to see some actual numbers with a VR focus...

Anecdotal, but I can speak to the Titan XP's performance in VR: it's exceptional. I haven't played anything where I've noticed a frame rate dip below 90, at any point.

Will the 1080 TI be able to support the HDMI 2.1 spec via an update at some point in the future? Does it already? I ask because I'm looking to build a gaming computer to connect to my TV, and I'd like to be able to use that newer standard on a newer TV in the future without having to buy a new video card.

EDIT: I see that according to the official spec sheet it supports 2.0b currently, so I'm really just wondering if this is something that can be patched in after the fact, I guess.

Doesn't AMD's incapability to compete justify NVidia's pricing? Is this just a case of wanting to build up a monolith only to tear them down being the favorite pastime of critics?

I ask this because time and time again for the past 15 years or so I've heard AMD is just around the corner from usurping NVidia's throne and it never has, leaving me to wonder whether or not the cost that we're paying is justified by the R&D to make these cards.

If it really was so "easy" then AMD would've done it by now. But every time they come out with a processor that's going to give Intel a run for its money or a GPU to give NVidia a run for its, the execution never comes close to the benchmarks.

I get it, AMD's the underdog and people love an underdog. But when do we start acknowledging that there's a reason why NVidia and Intel are in the lead?

they may not have held the crown for long, but the 7970 was a beast when it first came out especial with OC'ing (mine runs at 1.2 Ghz with out voltage change, water cooling keeps it nice at 55c) Nvidia topped it later in the year but it was undisputed champ for a bit. historically the 9700 pro/series beat up on the nvida for about a year with the performance crown (loved my 9800pro). the X1900 XTX had a very short time in the sun as king... most of the time it has been nvidia as king maker though... but those occasional flashes make sure Nvidia cannot rest on its laurels like Intel has of late.... man I remember the shock of eyefinity when it first came out that was a killer feature

I will say its been one sided since about the 780 series came out and AMD laptop GPU's have been a joke for awhile , I would like to see what Vega does before making my next buy even if it only lowers the price. My next GPU will likely be an Nvida though.

Are there any benchmarks that show off these cards' performance in VR? Hitman and BF1 at 4K are great and all and you can do some handy extrapolation, but it'd be nice to see some actual numbers with a VR focus...

We've been trying to figure out how best to benchmark VR along with the rest of the tech world for a little while now. You can't for instance, just load up fraps and put up some average FPS numbers since there's so much more going on in VR. Fortunately, it looks like there is a solution in the form of a new tool from Nvidia called FCAT VR. We need time to test it out before we publish any benchmarks with it (and I'm going to update the suite of benchmarks soon anyway with some up-to-date hardware and games), but the plan is to include them in the future if the tool works out.

Are there any benchmarks that show off these cards' performance in VR? Hitman and BF1 at 4K are great and all and you can do some handy extrapolation, but it'd be nice to see some actual numbers with a VR focus...

We've been trying to figure out how best to benchmark VR along with the rest of the tech world for a little while now. You can't for instance, just load up fraps and put up some average FPS numbers since there's so much more going on in VR. Fortunately, it looks like there is a solution in the form of a new tool from Nvidia called FCAT VR. We need time to test it out before we publish any benchmarks with it (and I'm going to update the suite of benchmarks soon anyway with some up-to-date hardware and games), but the plan is to include them in the future if the tool works out.

Doesn't AMD's incapability to compete justify NVidia's pricing? Is this just a case of wanting to build up a monolith only to tear them down being the favorite pastime of critics?

I ask this because time and time again for the past 15 years or so I've heard AMD is just around the corner from usurping NVidia's throne and it never has, leaving me to wonder whether or not the cost that we're paying is justified by the R&D to make these cards.

If it really was so "easy" then AMD would've done it by now. But every time they come out with a processor that's going to give Intel a run for its money or a GPU to give NVidia a run for its, the execution never comes close to the benchmarks.

I get it, AMD's the underdog and people love an underdog. But when do we start acknowledging that there's a reason why NVidia and Intel are in the lead?

I think there will be dark days ahead for Nvidia not due the AMD but indirectly due to AMD because the consoles are just going to get more powerful until the time they can do 4K 60 frames a second, making Nvidia make a card that is half the price of a GTX1080Ti... (because of PCMR) AMD does not care if they make a "console chip" that cannibalizes it's graphics cards, the scores of millions of consoles sold with said chip is "good enough". and AMD can Sell a Graphics card that is reasonably priced...

Come on. You are basically saying Moore's law is going to lead to dark days for NVidia. The computing power per dollar has continually risen for the entire time NVidia has existed and they have adapted. If 4K @ 60 fps becomes quaint then it will be 4K w/ even more bells and whistles at 144 fps for esports or 4K per eye w/ HDR for VR.

This looks like a very decent GPU, and I would buy it in a whim, if I had money to throw at it.I don't, however, and I will stick with AMD for now, for:1. stimulating the competition a bit - NVidia users should be happy if AMD fare well (the opposite is also true, to the extent that AMD still have enough money to stay competitive)2. having pretty decent performance, already, if you're not gaming at 4K and using all the bells and whistles. A lot of bang for your buck, really3. their promising advances, most notably in the memory domain, with HBM2 and on-board SSDs4. their commitment to open standards, unlike NVidia. And that's where it hurts every time I use an NVidia card.5. their open-source Linux driver strategy, which I like a lot. And, no, it's not completely overlapping with open *standards*.

So, I'm waiting for vega, and I might buy it, or a lower-powered card. Or I might just save money and stay with my current card, which doesn't seem that bad, and upgrade some other parts instead

You have two realistic choices. The first one is to go for 1080p/60fps in which case the rx 480 or gtx 1060 are more than appropriate; the second choice is to aim for 4k/60fps and get yourself a gtx 1080ti. All other cards are mostly pointless at this point, and no, I don't believe that 1440p gaming is worth the expenses, the resolution still sucks when compared to 4k.

Pff... 4K is nothing compared to 8K. Plus a real gamer would cringe at your 60FPS. 144 or bust. So you either wait for another 3-4 generations and do 8K/144FPS or stick to 720p/144FPS. Why bother with 1080p when it's closer to 720p than to 4K and you've obviously decided everything sucks compared to 4K?

Saying 1440p is "not worth the expense" is the pinnacle of subjectivity. You arbitrarily picked a few resolution points and without any attempt at objectivity, argumentation, or consistency decided that 1440p is somehow worse than 1080p and 4K at the same time.

I think the more logical choice is to go with the cheapest card that can give you 60FPS (if you prefer that number) at whatever resolution your screen has. Or simply choose the combination of screen+GPU that you can afford and still provides 60FPS. If 1080p goes then *anything* above it goes.

This looks like a very decent GPU, and I would buy it in a whim, if I had money to throw at it.I don't, however, and I will stick with AMD for now, for:1. stimulating the competition a bit - NVidia users should be happy if AMD fare well (the opposite is also true, to the extent that AMD still have enough money to stay competitive)2. having pretty decent performance, already, if you're not gaming at 4K and using all the bells and whistles. A lot of bang for your buck, really3. their promising advances, most notably in the memory domain, with HBM2 and on-board SSDs4. their commitment to open standards, unlike NVidia. And that's where it hurts every time I use an NVidia card.5. their open-source Linux driver strategy, which I like a lot. And, no, it's not completely overlapping with open *standards*.

So, I'm waiting for vega, and I might buy it, or a lower-powered card. Or I might just save money and stay with my current card, which doesn't seem that bad, and upgrade some other parts instead

I'm waiting for Vega to hopefully give Nvidia a run for their money and make them drop their pricing on the 10X lineup of cards.

As you use our Services, we may collect passive information through the use of cookies, web beacons, log file information and other tracking technologies, including your IP address, browser type, device type, device ID, geolocation data, Uniform Resource Locators (URL) and operating system

When you use our Services, we may collect "Personal information", which is any information that can be used to identify a particular individual which can include traditional identifiers such as name, address, e-mail address, telephone number and non-traditional identifiers such as unique device identifiers and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

We may, from time to time, share your Personal Information with third party business partners, vendors, affiliates, and other service providers that perform services on our behalf, in order to carry out their work for us, which may include identifying and serving targeted advertisements, e-commerce, content or service fulfillment, website operations, email communications management, customer service, analytics, manufacturing, integration, delivery, support, payment, and servicing processes.

In other words: it's for marketing, and they can share any data they pull from your system any goddamn way they feel like, with anyone they want. Note the really important bit: serving targeted advertisements. They can combine this data with any other entity they want, to build any kind of profile on you they wish, and then use it to try to extract more money from your wallet.

Video drivers are in a supremely privileged position in your system, and I firmly believe that this is unethical behavior.

edit to add: There is no limit to the data they can extract from your computer. This is a spying position that Facebook would kill for -- and would likely pay NVidia a lot of money to get their hands on.

Has there been any attempts to block this telemetry via windows firewall, or at the router level?

I prefer nvidia cards due to my GoG library, and AMD's continued ineptitude at making drivers that dont bork older games, but if I have to keep my machine offline to prevent telemetry, it's going a bit too far.

This looks like a very decent GPU, and I would buy it in a whim, if I had money to throw at it.I don't, however, and I will stick with AMD for now, for:1. stimulating the competition a bit - NVidia users should be happy if AMD fare well (the opposite is also true, to the extent that AMD still have enough money to stay competitive)2. having pretty decent performance, already, if you're not gaming at 4K and using all the bells and whistles. A lot of bang for your buck, really3. their promising advances, most notably in the memory domain, with HBM2 and on-board SSDs4. their commitment to open standards, unlike NVidia. And that's where it hurts every time I use an NVidia card.5. their open-source Linux driver strategy, which I like a lot. And, no, it's not completely overlapping with open *standards*.

So, I'm waiting for vega, and I might buy it, or a lower-powered card. Or I might just save money and stay with my current card, which doesn't seem that bad, and upgrade some other parts instead

I'm waiting for Vega to hopefully give Nvidia a run for their money and make them drop their pricing on the 10X lineup of cards.

Nvidia has specifically dropped the price of the 1080 to saturate the market before Vega benchmarks are out and awareness is high. I think it's a masterstroke on their part. Don't drop the prices to match your competitor, but kill them on volume and installed base before they get a chance to get their product out. I went with an RX 470 which has been a great value.